


The Waiting Game

by JovialKoala



Category: GreedFall (Video Game)
Genre: Canon, Cause there's not enough yet obviously, De Sardet's POV, Eventual Romance, F/M, Female De Sardet (GreedFall), Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Not that we all know the dialogues by heart anyway, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, Spoilers, but you didn't hear it from me, there might be a vasco fling somewhere in this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26267353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JovialKoala/pseuds/JovialKoala
Summary: A few weeks before departing for Tír Fradí, the strings around Joan de Sardet’s perfectly stitched life unravel when her longtime mentor and master of arms suddenly sets her heart racing. As niece of the Prince and Legate of the Congregation, Joan knows she must suppress such indecent feelings at all costs. But the longer she spends at Kurt's side, trying to restrain her thoughts, the more she wonders...
Relationships: Kurt/De Sardet (GreedFall), Kurt/Female De Sardet (GreedFall)
Comments: 62
Kudos: 45





	1. Fledgling

**Author's Note:**

> A story from De Sardet's point of view, including all the emotional struggle, clumsiness and bad decisions that come with trying to win Kurt's heart all the while denying she has fallen for him in the first place. 
> 
> "There's a fire inside me  
> Waiting for something  
> Burning uncontrollably  
> If I do nothing
> 
> I'm waiting for you  
> You’re waiting for me  
> Afraid of what we'll find  
> If we let words run free"
> 
> Kalandra - the Waiting Game  
> 

Joan was not one to swear, but today she was about to begin.

For the hundredth time, she shifted her hand below her sword’s crossguard, seeking a better grip in her sweat-soaked gloves as she circled her master of arms. His blade grazed hers fleetingly, their movements mirrored by years of rehearsed precision. Joan was waiting, though she wasn’t sure for what. An open side, a raised arm, a wrong step -- she’d take anything at this point. But she needn’t have bothered. Her perfectly measured killing blow came to nothing when Kurt hooked her ankle and robbed her of the ground beneath her feet. 

“You call that a stance, your Excellency?”

His mockery dripped off her body like rain. She spun around to turn the force of the impact into a side roll, but she was a touch too slow. Again. Her shoulder clashed on stone, her sword clattering across the yard in a thunder of steel somewhere behind, and the curse that left her lips would have put a sailor to shame. 

“Now that’s some ugly words for someone as noble as you.” Kurt picked up her sword with a smirk. 

Joan shot him a vicious glance. “I had the best mentor.”

She nearly cursed again when she assessed the damage to her gloves. The fabric was scuffed to the ball of her hand, the silver threads frayed. She ripped them off. Her cousin would be mad to find out she’d tossed his gift into the dust; it was the third pair this spring. But they were proof of another lost fight, and that she didn’t want on her skin. 

Kurt marched over, and she wiped her sweaty fingers down the front of her trousers before taking the hand he offered her. A thin line between his brows was the only forewarning this round would be different than the last. When she reached for her sword, he held it out even further. 

“Your mind is elsewhere,” he said. “That’s a straight road to losing a fight.”

“Perhaps you’ve cheated.” Joan put her hands on her hips, well aware that Kurt valued honour above all else. But flighty banter was easier than admitting that the racing of her heart was not entirely due to the fight.

“Believe me, your flimsy skills are the ones to blame.”

Joan knew he was right, but she wanted to look for a scapegoat anway -- in the sun for reflecting off his blade or in her cousin for hiding from his father’s wrath after his maids discovered questionable herbs in his stockings this morning. If Constantin were here to share Kurt’s attention, her weapons master might not have noticed her behaviour. But he had, and there was nothing she could say in her defense. 

Nothing she could tell _him_ , at least. 

She glanced after him when he marched off to place her sword on the weapons rack at the corner of the yard. Heat shimmered over the stones like a glistening fog and the sunlight dappled his blue and silver gambeson through a wave of clouds. Joan wiped her brow in a faint breeze that was too weak to blow the strands of auburn hair from her face. Some of the recruits would strip their gear for melee training on days like these, but she had never seen Kurt stray from protocol. She should be glad. Joan had trouble ignoring the lines of sweat trailing down his neck; she could not imagine fighting when his shirt clung to the muscles of his lower abdomen.

“Are you frozen, Green Blood?” Kurt stepped up and raised a dark brow as he caught her glaring at his waistline. “I said twenty push ups, nose to the ground.”

As much as her shoulder ached from the fall, she was grateful for a reason to lower her head, for her cheeks were burning pits of ember when he reached her side. “I’m starting to believe you’re making _me_ pay for Constantin’s absence. I’m a living soul, you know.”

“Is that your excuse today? You believe I’m too rough on you? Well in that case…” Kurt didn’t wait for her to finish. He turned on his heels and gestured to her to follow. “Come, little fledgling.”

The anticipation pounded in his steps like drums announcing guests of honour at a ball, and her stomach twisted into a knot when they walked up the stairs. 

“The armoury?” she said. “Did you get tired of your torture instruments?”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Green Blood. At this point I’m afraid of cutting your pretty little face by accident.” Kurt opened the door to a small, dust-coated room that hardly ever saw the light of day. “The Prince would have my head if you ended up looking like me.”

The candlelight cast his profile harshly against the darkness as he surveyed the weapons racks, considering his options. Her gaze wandered over the scars of his face, the rough one on the bridge of his nose, the thin line through his eyebrow, and finally, the one dividing his perfectly soft lips. Her voice was awfully loud in the tiny room. “What’s wrong with that?” 

Kurt’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t respond. It was probably for the best. As he went to rummage through the darkest corners, she scolded herself for her foolishness. He was just her master of arms. When did this become so hard for her? She remembered them joking over a deck of cards after Constantin had long since fallen asleep on the table. Their little flirtations and just how many times they had crossed the line with what they said to each other. Nothing but empty words. And yet at night she found herself going through all those conversations again, turning all those flighty words and comments upside down and wondered, just wondered…

Kurt pulled a weapon from a chest that seemed to be held in place solely by spiderwebs. At first glance, the sword seemed ordinary enough, but then it reached the glow of the candles. What she had taken for a darker steel had in fact been polished and refined _wood_.

“You’ve earned it,” Kurt said, presenting it just like her blunt steel sword eight years ago, and her sharp blade some years after that. 

“Incredibly witty, Kurt.” 

“Believe me, I’m in no joking mood today. You’ve squandered that in the last thirty minutes.” Kurt took out another wooden blade and pushed the lid of the chest shut with his boot. “We’ll continue with steel when you stop thinking about your dandy.”

A thousand glowing needles pinched her stomach. “My _dandy_?” 

Kurt glanced back at her, a smirk tugging at the edge of his lips. “Did I strike a nerve?”

“Because this close to departure I have nothing better to do than to seek a frivolous liaison as a pastime?” Joan straightened her back to keep the heat from rising to her face. “The only thing that’s been struck are your senses, Captain.”

“Whatever you say, your Excellency.” Kurt walked up to her. A lump formed in her throat, but she didn’t dare swallow as he took her hand and pressed the wooden grip into her palm. “But your mind clearly isn’t on the training ground, I can tell as much from your footwork. You’re even blushing as we speak. Fighting skills aren’t the only thing you’ll have to work on before we depart for the isle, that’s for sure.”

Joan dug her nails into the handle as she followed him outside, lifting her chin to save as much of her poise as she could, but it left her with every step into the bright daylight of the court. 

“Now draw, Green Blood,” Kurt said, positioning his own wooden sword before him. “Show me those last years were not a complete waste of time.”

She brushed off the sting of his words. She was a good fighter, not to say his best student. It would only take a few more rounds for her to send his sword flying, and the whole matter would soon be forgotten. Joan shifted her hand, the sword threatening to slip right out of her grip when she took position before him. Something told her it wouldn’t be that easy. 

Kurt gave her no time to adjust to the new weapon. He led her into a tight circle and struck when she was blinded by the sun. Swiftly, Joan dodged to the side, only to realize his attack was merely a feint. Pain flashed in her arms as she raised her sword to block the real attack, the force sending her back two steps. Kurt cast her a knowing look.

_Focus._

“Enough with the defenses,” he said, tapping his blade against her wrist. “Try to land a hit, Green Blood. Or I’ll show you how it‘s done.”

Joan took a step outside his perimeter to breathe, assess her situation, assess _him_. But nothing came of it that she didn’t already know, and Kurt knocked the blade out of her hand before she could even decide where to strike him. She picked it up, again and again, but as soon as she rose, the scorch of his steel-gray eyes drained the ease from her steps and stiffened her fingers around the hilt. She felt like a fifteen-year-old again, clumsy, gangly, and under constant scrutiny from a stately young weapons master. 

Joan chided herself. How pathetic she was. She wasn’t a lovesick teenager anymore, so she had to stop acting as one. She was twenty-four, and she could damn well beat her weapons master in these last months of her training. 

A kick to his stomach finally pushed him off balance, and Joan hurled forward, aiming her blade at the sensitive part of his upper body, where the padding was thin and the shoulderplates ended, right underneath the armpit, but Kurt raised his hand before the blade reached its goal.

“Hold.”

She knew her mistakes before he closed their distance. In a court duel, she could have got away with her sloppy stance, but not with Kurt. Never with Kurt.

Slowly, he walked around her, letting the awareness of her body’s instability sink into her mind before he began correcting her. She forced her gaze to the tip of her blade, a straight extension of her arms, trembling slightly as it pointed to the empty space Kurt had occupied only a moment before.

He touched her waist, firmly turning her hips parallel to the line of her shoulders. With his boots, he shoved her feet further apart. He circled her, pulling on arms and wrists to test the firmness of her stand, leaving trails of warmth from the spots he touched, and came to halt before her. She tried to focus at the tip of her blade, she really did, but then his index finger landed below her chin, lifting it up ever so slightly, and she could have counted each hair of his stubble if she’d let her mind wander along that path. Her sword trembled in rhythm with her pulse. 

Kurt grabbed her by the waist and pushed her to the side, nearly tripping her over her own feet. 

“Am I making you nervous, your Excellency?”

“You can try.” She laughed mockingly, drowning out the sound of her beating heart. Damn her fair skin and the heat that found her so quickly. 

Kurt gave her a wicked smile before he tapped her sword to start a new round. Joan didn’t trust the peace. He would stop any moment, she was sure of that. He would put two and two together, turn back to her, a scowl on his face. But the sun moved quickly, leaving them to fight in the shadows of the keep. They had thrown worse banter at each other, so she shouldn’t be so concerned.

She dived away under his attack and charged his back, but he was faster. He always was. Every missed parry was met with a hit to another body part she had left undefended, every bruise becoming a reminder of mistakes she had worked on years ago. 

“I thought you were afraid of hurting my pretty face?” Joan said sheepishly after he sent her breathless with a hit to the stomach. She rubbed at the spot without losing sight of him.

“Right now, I’m more concerned about what the Prince will say.” 

_That makes two of us._

Kurt bashed her sword away with ease, meeting her exposed neck with his blade. “You’re dead. Draw again.”

She got back to position, biting down her frustration until she tasted the blood on her lip.

_Block. Block. Attack._

She twisted her sword overhand for a stab at his kidney, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him, the tip of his blade pressed against her own side instead. Pearls of sweat caught on his eyebrow, strands of black hair peeked out from under his hat. “Dead again, Green Blood,” he said. “You really sure your mind is on the sword in your hand?”

She shoved him away with more power than needed, her chest heaving with a sharp breath. “What is it, Kurt? Am I not allowed to have a bad day? You’ve had yours for sure.”

He bent his wrist, a half-hearted smirk tugging on his lips. “I’ve seen your bad days. It’s those when you thrust at me all teeth and claws,” he said. “But if the thought of a young man can so easily brush away your skills, we must drill them deeper into your muscles.”

He was right, and he could never know why. Joan had to drill these thoughts from his mind before they could poison him. 

She put her bodyweight into the next thrust, meeting his sword halfway and blocking it with all her might. Kurt stepped aside and withdrew his sword. He shook his head as she stumbled forward at the sudden loss of resistance like some young recruit.

“What a Green Blood.”

Joan gave him a sour look. She was slowly but surely losing what little control of the situation she had left, and it was driving her insane.

She had no more cards to play, no tricks to show. It was as if she had entered a different yard this day, a different body. All her lightness, all the confidence to follow his strikes like a river – gone. There was a stiffness to her movements she just couldn’t control, and as soon as she met his piercing gaze, her mind was cleared as if a storm had blown through. 

It wasn’t long before Kurt disarmed her again, the wooden sword bashed out of her grip like a flighty thought. He twisted her arm back and pinned her down to the stone with a knee between her shoulder blades, pressing the air from her lungs.

She tapped the stone with the flat of her hand, but Kurt only rose after the third time, as if he first had to decide what to do with her. Joan gasped for air and coughed when she inhaled dust instead. It scratched her throat, coating her insides with the same dirt that stained her pride. 

Kurt sighed, lifted his hat, ran his fingers through his hair to direct the strands back into place and put the hat back on. Then he said the words she’d never thought she’d hear from a man of principles like him. “This isn’t going anywhere. Dismissed, your Excellency.”

She propped herself back up on her knees, searching for her dignity and finding her knees bleeding instead. Her common sense told her she must have misheard, but the disappointment in his voice told her otherwise. Kurt never ended training on a bad run. It was something about motivation and muscle memory, one of the principles he never broke.

Had he really just given up on her? On _her_?

Joan swallowed down a lump and reached for her torn gloves as if they carried the words she was looking for. “I’m … sorry, Kurt, I…” 

A part of her was set alight at the foolish thought of telling him, of whispering the words that strangled her. Would he see her differently then? Would his eyes darken with desire? Would his gaze brush her lips in curiosity? A thought that loomed in her mind at night, when her guard was too weak to ward it off. 

A delusion.

“Show me.” She lifted her eyes to find Kurt standing over her, offering her his hand yet again. She let herself be pulled up, staring at the leather strap across his chest. “Your last chance is tomorrow. Prove to me it was just a bad day. Or I’ll stalk you long enough to find out who this dandy is. And believe me, I will.”

Joan crumpled the gloves in her hand as Kurt marched off the yard, shivering in the heat of the sun. 

The truth was painful, as harsh as the daylight painting over the soft hues of her nocturnal thoughts. Kurt was her mentor. He was the Captain of the Royal Guard, and Joan had endured enough of her uncle’s lectures to know the rules at court. To know that she had to find the root of this poisonous vine, tear it out of her heart and sink it in the murky waters of the Sérène Port.

The truth was, she didn’t know if she could tear it out in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading my little tale, I hope you enjoy it. Also, I'd love to hear from you!
> 
> I'm not a native speaker (no pun intended), so I am truly sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes. A special thanks to AthenaNike for proofreading my edit on this one!
> 
> [Major Update on 12th Jan '21: After spending some time in this story I decided the beginning deserved more love^^. I tried to keep it as close to the original version as possible, so you didn't miss anything if you read on. I hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading!]


	2. Reckless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> De Sardet trying to save the day, and Constantin just being...well, Constantin.

Joan stared at the letter until the words melted into a sea of ink. She tapped the metal pen against the desk, put it down, stared at the elder tree outside her opened window and picked it back up. This shouldn’t be so hard. 

In the last two weeks alone,  she must have written enough official correspondences to fill a library.  She was trained for this, Sir de Courcillon had seen to that.  So why couldn’t she think of the words to fill a practise letter meant for somebody who wasn’t even real? 

Joan took a sip of black tea and grimaced. She must have been sitting on it longer than she thought, for the tea was bitter and cold and left an ugly stain in her cup. Perhaps she wasn’t trained for this after all. Her fingers drifted to her birthmark, sprawling over the left side of her jaw like tree bark. Perhaps her skills in diplomacy weren’t the reason why her uncle was sending her to the isle. 

_ Nonsense.  _

She pulled the oil lamp close to dispel the shadows of her thoughts. There was neither the room nor the time to think about it. She had to make this “Prince de Maillé” beg for an alliance if she wanted to leave her room in time. The clock on her cabinet marched mercilessly past the golden numbers, and when the hand hit four,  _ he _ expected her to be back in the yard with a solid reason for yesterday's performance.

She didn’t have one.

Her pen tapped against the desk again. No amount of black tea would restore the fatigue of a sleepless night. And no amount of sleepless hours could have helped her figure out a reason.

Her pitiful plan revolved around the archive instead. There had to be some unmarried  _ dandy _ in her past correspondences she could use to set Kurt on a false trail. The plan was feeble and would crumble beneath the slightest scrutiny, but it would grant her time. She had to distract Kurt from the truth until she was able to control herself.

And she had to finish this impossible letter if she wanted to access the archive before training started.

She dipped her pen in ink and the soothing scratching of parchment filled the air. Joan reached the end of the first page as a hushed laugh seeped from the courtyard garden. She peered over the crown of the elder tree to catch a glimpse of Lady Eleanor disappearing among the lush green hedges. Judging by the sound of a deeper voice, she was not alone. The marble fountain was one of the few places at court hidden from unwanted glances. 

Joan tried to focus on her letter again, but the thought wouldn’t leave her. 

Did Kurt have someone, too?

Sérène was full of young unwed women. Perhaps he fancied one of these pretty girls that were selling vegetables in the Trader’s District? Was this where he went in the afternoon, bringing her little gifts and telling her anecdotes from the palace when they walked along the waterfront? It was hard to imagine her grumpy weapons master courting a shy little thing. Perhaps he’d rather pay for services in the brothel like a common soldier? 

The thought was so very wrong that she looked over her shoulder, making sure there wasn't a servant lingering around to see the guilt on her face. 

A conveniently timed knock nearly made her jump. 

“Excuse me, My Lady.” A young girl, hardly sixteen years old, peeked into the room. Her gaze locked on the drops of ink splattered on Joan’s desk from her fright. “I did not want to disturb you.”

“You couldn’t,” Joan said with a smile as she wiped the spots away with a handkerchief. “I was just lost in thought. Please, come in. Have you any news from my uncle?”

Anna curtsied, kneading her hands in front of her skirt. “Your Lady is too kind,” she said. “But he hasn’t called me yet.”

“Don't be humble, you do good work, Anna.”

_ Besides, I'd rather have you here than entangled in my aunt's intrigues. _

Joan hoped she could have Anna assigned as her personal chambermaid, for none of the secrets she happened to discover made it out of the room, and at this court she would have known if they did. But that wasn’t the full reason.

In truth, Joan was frightened of the day Princess d’Orsay would find out about Anna’s discretion. And she hoped they both could leave Gacane before that happened, or Anna would not be able to leave the Princess’ side again. She would crumble into dust like the last maid that came with big hopes and left in a small coffin. 

Joan laid the handkerchief on the tea tray. “What brings you here if not my uncle?” Joan said.

“Sir de Courcillon.”

Her smile froze. “Already? I am not finished yet. Tell him I will come shortly.”

Anna wrung her hands, swallowing loud enough to hear it from across the room.

“What else?”

“Very sorry, My Lady, but he told me to get you right now. It seemed urgent.”

Joan picked up the letter with a sigh. It would have to do. She just hoped De Courcillon wouldn't make her stay longer to make up for it, for she needed at least half an hour to search the archive, and she couldn’t begin to imagine Kurt's reaction if she was late for training today.

***

The hint of a smirk flickered over Sir de Courcillon’s face.

“Very well,” he said, folding the letter neatly and placing it in a book titled  _ Lost Songs of the Nauts.  _ “You may give it to Prince de Maillé personally once he arrives.”

Joan blinked as he cleared his desk of everything but a brownish flask. Surely she must have misheard. But Sir de Courcillon made no move to correct himself when he grabbed his bordeaux coat from the back of the chair.

“Oh, do not worry,” he said, navigating his way through a dozen paper scrolls and books scattered across the floor. “I will polish some parts to keep the peace between our nations. But be aware, next time you will send it without my refinement.”

“The peace between our…” Joan shook her head and stepped into his path. “If I recall correctly, you told me this man wasn't real.”

“That, I must admit,” Sir de Courcillon said. “But I may assure you, the opinion of Prince de Maillé on the mining conflict in Chebouile is of utmost importance to us.”

Her eyes darted between his face and the small book in his hands. “I don’t think I follow.”

“No?” He smiled and reached into his coat pockets looking for a place to put the book and pulling out what looked like a finger bone in the process. “I had the impression you were holding back in your last letters. I believed an exercise like this could take the fear from you and let you write more freely. By the shock on your face, it worked out just the way I hoped.”

Sir de Courcillon had strange ways of teaching, she knew as much by now. But such deception surprised even her.

“You are disappointed,” he noted.

“I didn’t think you were capable of lying, is all.”

“Ah,” he said, voice still full of amusement. “You see, sometimes a little lie is needed to achieve a greater goal. But do not be fooled by the easiness. In this case, it has served me well. But it must always be weighed carefully, in consideration of the consequences. I believe you are old enough to choose wisely, and smart enough to follow the truth in any case.” 

De Courcillon slipped into his coat and walked past her. “Now, you must excuse me, for your uncle has received news that he demands my presence for.” He gestured at a dark corner in the back of the room. “I must ask you to see to it that he finishes his essay. I am afraid he will not write a single word when he is on his own.”

Joan followed his gesture and only just realized Constantin was sitting behind another desk, hidden between humongous stacks of papers and yellowed tomes. His eyes glinted desperately as he formed the word “help”. She nearly laughed at the sight, until she grasped the full meaning of de Courcillon's request.

“No,” she said, marching to the door, ready to slip past him. “I’m sorry, I can’t stay, Sir. I have important tasks to do.”

Sir de Courcillon blocked the frame, hand on the doorknob, eyes narrowed. His eyes didn’t burn into her soul quite like Kurt’s could, but he knew how to read people. “What tasks, De Sardet?”

What tasks?

_ I have to sneak into the royal archives to stop my mentor from snooping around. _

But she could hardly say that. 

“In any case,” Sir de Courcillon said, “It is up to you to see he finishes it. Leave the stack on my desk when you are done.”

He closed the door before Joan could find a better excuse. She bit her lip to suppress what vile words lingered there instead. Then she whirled around. “How did you anger him this time, Constantin?”

“Me? My dear cousin, I would never think of such a thing.”

“You never think.” She strode to de Courcillon’s desk and grabbed the flask, the glass too opaque to see what was inside and the label too worn. Something inside rustled faintly when she shook it. “This doesn't happen to be whatever that maid found in your stockings, is it?”

“I really don't know what the fuss is about.” Constantin aimed his pen at a wind chime dangling from the chandelier. It stirred up the wooden tubes like a flock of birds before it dropped and rolled to the tip of her boot. “It’s just a little jest after all.”

Joan put down the flask with a loud thud. “Jest?”

“It might have turned the sky purple, but that was all.” He shrugged. “Disappointing, really.”

Joan picked up the pen and took a deep breath to keep herself from throwing it right into his face. Instead, she placed her palms on his desk plate and stared him down. “You will become governour, Constantin.”

“And you will become like father if you keep using his words.”

“At least one of us is,” she said. “Do you spare even one minute thinking about the responsibilities that lie ahead?”

“Of course, my dear. And I dare say no one is more suitable for such a task than me.”

“Good.” She placed the pen down before him. “Then you understand the importance of writing this essay until your fingers burn.”

Constantin blew a strand of blonde hair from his face. “Cousin,” he said. “As future governour I insist on taking in all my options.”

“Your options are to write or to hide from me.”

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his boots on the desk, sending a good third of a paper stack to the floor. “I believe we have more than forty-five minutes to find Hector to write this for us.” 

She knew better than to ask who this Hector was. But it didn’t matter. Constantin returned her deathly glare with the eyes of a puppy, ready for play. “Why sit here when we could use the time to enjoy a little sunlight outside the tavern?”

Joan held back on rolling her eyes. She had no time for these discussions. She had no time for any of this, really. 

She pulled up a chair and untucked the paper from underneath his heels. The page was filled with illegible scribbles and somewhere underneath, the drawing of their professor’s face could still be made out. She flipped it over. “Tell me you’re joking.”

Constantin didn’t budge as Joan rummaged through the paperstacks on either side, flipping through them.

_ Empty. Empty. Empty. _

“Tell me you’re joking, Constantin!”

“Forty minutes to find Hector, dear cousin. Forty minutes.”

The papers dropped to the floor. “You haven’t written anything?”

Constantin sat up with a sigh, and started to ease her shoulder muscles with the pressure of his thumbs. “No wonder you are so stiff; you always choose the hardest way of doing things.”

“I choose the right way of doing things.” Joan took the pen with trembling fingers, refusing to acknowledge it was pointless. “What are we supposed to do?”

“I’m so glad you asked.” He gestured to the stack of books towering over their heads. “We’ll have to go through the history of Gacane and process how the discovery of each herb influenced the Merchant Congregation.”

Of course they did. 

Joan opened the first book, a full thousand-page tome, written in the smallest letters she had ever seen. Who was she trying to fool? This wasn’t about getting into the archive anymore. It was about what she was willing to do to even get to training.

What  _ was _ she willing to do?

Her fingers drummed on the book. She stared at the corner of the blank page that peeked out from under the tome like a squashed blossom. “On the purely hypothetical assumption that this Hector would be an option,” Joan mumbled, “How exactly would we get to him unseen?”

Constantin grinned devilishly, picking the pen from her hands. “My lovely cousin, you have such little knowledge of the servants’ passages it makes me embarrassed to be related to you.”

Joan was still staring at the endless lines. This was not her way of dealing with these sorts of problems. This wasn’t  _ her _ . But neither was disappointing Kurt. And the longer she contemplated, the more she envisioned his scowl. 

She took a defeated breath and closed the book. “Show me then.”

***

It felt wrong.

Of course it did. It shouldn't feel good to steal away through some dark halls and fake walls into the lower part of the palace while avoiding servants they normally commanded. Before long, they were in the city, faces hidden in the shadows of a hood and wrapped in old servant cloaks.

Before long, Joan regretted following him. 

“Just where exactly is this man of yours?” she asked Constantin after a particularly angry cat hissed and ran past her, scratching her cloak on the way.

“We're nearly there, cousin!” He said. “It's just around this corner!”

_ You told me that three corners earlier. _

But the words stuck in her throat as they climbed through a broken wooden façade. A part of Sérène opened up before her that she wouldn’t have visited even with Kurt by her side.

Old Town.

“Constantin,” she whispered. “Are you sure this is the right way?”

But Constantin had already disappeared into a side alley. It was covered in broken crates, flour bags and wooden planks, all scattered across the cobblestone like toothpicks. When Joan caught up with thim, they were just walking past a group of homeless people, sitting around a fire, their hands stretched towards the glistening warmth. 

This was madness.

But now it was too late to turn back, for as much as she feared following Constantin deeper into this abyss, she feared leaving him to his fate.

For once, she hoped Kurt would find them. He would beat the daylight out of them for prowling in that part of the city, but at least they’d be safe. She couldn't remember a single time they’d left the safe roads without their master of arms finding them minutes later, dragging them back to the palace and making them pay for their adventures in training. But today, she had made sure he was in the palace, that his voice echoed off the columns of the training yard before she followed Constantin anywhere.

Kurt wouldn’t start searching until they were late for training. 

A small yard opened up in front of them. Half a dozen men were sitting on empty barrels around a table, bantering and playing cards. They eyed them with interest and began to whistle obscenely when they noticed her small figure. Bodies lay on the ground behind them, hidden and tied up with stained cloth.

Joan swallowed. If any of them moved, she’d grab Constantin’s arm and dart for the road again.

“Very sorry, gentlemen,” Constantin said. How he could keep his mask, standing amidst piles of filth, and possibly bodies, while facing a group of thugs, she had no idea. “We did not mean to interrupt your meeting. We're looking for Hector. Is he home?”

Joan stared at her cousin. With him, she was used to scandals. But she had once again overestimated the kind of company he entertained. 

One of the men spat out. “He's inside the shop.”

“Excellent!” Constantin stepped over a body as if it were a barrel. At this point she wasn't even sure he knew what it was. Yet she had never followed him more quickly.

The shop was dark and cramped, but in a different way than de Courcillon’s room. It seemed as if it were waiting, lurking patiently, for the moment she got too close to it to be swallowed and made a part of it. The faint daylight hardly made it through the dusty window panes, and there wasn’t enough air for the both of them.

“Constantin! My best customer!” A dark figure made its way through the tiny shop, bumping against the tables and knocking down a good dozen flasks and glasses. The man took Constantin by the shoulder and kissed both of his cheeks before he turned to Joan and held out a hand. “Lovely to meet a woman at your side!”

Joan flinched and hit the doorknob with her waist. “You…must be Hector.” 

He was big. There was no other way to put it. He had a belly that seemed to go straight from his shoes up to his nose, his round face framed by untamable brown locks. His fingers were the size of sausages and even reminded her of their color.

“Aye, that’s me,” he said, withdrawing his hand as she didn’t take it. “So Constantin couldn’t help talking about me again, huh?” He chuckled. “So what’s it to be for you?"

Constantin was already strutting along the shelves, his fingers on the labels. “Our old teacher wants to give us a punishment essay, but  _ unfortunately  _ we have run out of ink.”

Joan raised a brow, but Hector was already halfway into the back of the shop.

“Ahh, I have just what you need,” he said when he returned with something looking very similar to a sponge the size of a child’s fist. “This little beauty here. Ramaria pallida.”

“Palli...what?”

“Ramaria pallida,” Constantin repeated with eyes big as the moon. “If this isn't one of nature’s best inventions, I don't know what is.”

Her eyes darted to Constantin. She should have known, truly, but she was still surprised her cousin would dare lie to her like that. 

“Another drug? I thought you had learned your lesson.” Joan turned to the door, but Constantin closed it in front of her nose. 

“Hear me out, please.”

This was stupid. They were in trouble as it was, but if she rushed home, perhaps she could manage to write another page or so, which, at this point, was better than nothing.

“He sells herbs, Constantin! Now unless you have fogged your brain, Sir de Courcillon will certainly notice the difference between a paper and a plant!"

“But you don’t understand, you see, this absolutely amazing, astonishing little mushroom is our solution!” He took her hand and gave her that puppy look again. “It makes you go sick for just a short while. Isn't this brilliant? We'll go back to the palace, work like the dedicated students we are, and when someone comes to fetch us - boom. We're so sick they’ll send us to bed instantly. Once we can stand on our feet again, they'll have forgotten we needed to perform any task at all.”

Joan narrowed her eyes. “This isn't the first time you're using this, is it?”

“ _ Pallida _ is completely safe,” Hector added with a chuckle. “You can believe me there are enough people who’ve tried. The young soldiers love this stuff, saves them a strenuous training lesson. But we also have no shortage of noble customers.” He winked at her cousin.

So this was Constantin’s easy way out of every occasion that overwhelmed him. Clever, but he would never grow if he skipped the hard parts in life. Joan eyed the spongy mushroom in Hector’s hands.

“Just how much of this do you have in stock?”

“About a pound or two, My Lady.”

It would have been a lie to say it wasn‘t tempting. If she ate it, she wouldn’t have to meet Kurt today. She had enough time to access the archive and set up her perfidious plan. But as tempting as it was, it would never work. If the Guard knew this trick, Kurt knew it, too. And she’d rather perform badly for another time than to disappoint him with such a lie.

“Fine. I'll take all you have.”

Constantin’s jaw dropped as Hector gathered whatever traces he could find, clearly out of his mind with glee from such an offer. 

“If I was completely honest, I doubted we would take anything at all, with you being the reasonable soul of the two of us,” Constantin said. “But you will not regret it!”

“Oh, I am sure of that.” Joan counted the coins on the table and stuffed the mushroom into her bag. “Because as soon as we reach a fireplace, I will burn this terrible little thing and you will have to write a damn good essay in the remaining ten minutes if you want me to ever go with you anywhere again.”

Constantin grabbed her arm. “Joan…” 

His eyes darted between her and the door, his fingers piercing into her flesh. As if he could stop her that easily. 

“No, Constantin.” She withdrew from his grip and pressed the bag against her. “It is about time you learn that the right way is not always the most pleasant one.”

“But cousin…”

Joan ignored his plea. She pushed the door open and froze on the stairs, only now realizing the mistake she made. Constantin hadn't been afraid of her threat. He had tried to stop her from colliding with the shadow that rose over her shrinking figure. 

Kurt stared down at her, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed so deeply she could hardly see the eyes beneath them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little side note: "Gacane" is the name of the Continent to which Sérène belongs. I stumbled across it on the Greedfall Wiki, but I'm not sure if it's even mentioned in the game?  
> Thank you for reading!
> 
>   
> [Major Update on 21th Jan '21: this chapter got polished quite a bit;) As with the first chapter, it still has the same elements, so you won't have missed anything with the update if you read on.]  
> Big thanks to AthenaNike for proofreading and answering all my questions on the edit of this one!


	3. Hollow

“You strayed far from the nest, your Excellency.”

Kurt spoke calmly, but Joan knew him long enough not to be fooled by the façade. It was a treacherous calmness, a thin layer of ice on a frozen lake, waiting for the wrong step to plunge her into the darkness below. She took a moment to compose herself before she walked down the stairs.

“I’m well aware,” she said, putting up the most casual smile she could feign. “And I was just about to head back. Did my uncle send you?” 

She didn’t come far.

Kurt stopped her right in front of him, his palm pressing against her shoulder, just inches from where her racing heart belied her voice. She forgot to breathe as his eyes found her, reading her reactions before she could hide them. He didn’t say it. The tension in his hand was a fleeting impression of what to expect when she failed to come up with an explanation.

Her mind spun.

A glint of light flashed off the window panes, painting a warm tone on Kurt’s face as his gaze wandered off to the space around them. The men were gone, but the air still reeked of their unwashed bodies. A rat lurked in the corner beside a barrel, its nose twitching in her direction before it bolted for a crack in the wall. When Kurt’s gaze met the body bags in the pit, a handful of earth over their linen, she realized there was no way out of this situation that would end well.

"Count yourself lucky I found you in one piece." Kurt mumbled the words so faintly, she wasn’t sure if he had talked to himself. A strange expression crossed his face, one she neither recognized nor knew how to react to. His hand still rested heavily on her, locking her too close to him to breathe easily. 

“I know the reputation of Old Town,” she said. 

_Poor choice of words._

Kurt’s eyes shot back to her, his eyebrows furled to a thin line. “And yet you’ve come here,” he said. “You must believe your nobility would shield you from everything.” 

“I can assure you, I have taken measures to avoid attracting attention.” 

“Oh, you have,” he said. “To sneak past the guard.” 

She took a step back at the sharpness of his voice, a piece of broken glass crunching beneath her boots. “That's not what I meant.”

Kurt crossed his arms, lifting his chin mockingly. “So you really believe a dirty cloak would protect you from back alley bandits? Don’t insult my intelligence.”

When she swallowed, her tongue brushed over sandpaper. Joan was tempted to tear open the store and drag Constantin out by the ears. To kick Hector face-front to the street and make him explain. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t let Kurt see what she bought. Not him and not now.

She took a deep breath and remembered her lessons with Sir de Courcillon. _Be a mirror, not a window._

“I’m sorry I didn’t call for the guard. This was just a short errand and I did not want to interrupt your duties for a bagatelle like this.”

“Is that so?” 

Joan didn’t let his mocking tone affect her. This was her last card, and she knew she pushed her luck.

“If you really must know, Sir de Courcillon sent me to research a rare herb for him,” she said. “You would have known if you’d asked him instead of assuming the worst right away and storming through the city.”

Her heart pounded in the silence that followed. Kurt studied her closely, his face as impassible as a stone. It was unsettling how he could stand so perfectly still, there was no sign of him being alive at all. 

“Strange,” he said. “The old teacher told me quite the different story.” 

Did he bluff? She couldn’t tell. Her heart jumped against her ribs, ready to crack them at any moment. Kurt had her cornered, and he knew it.

“You must have misheard. I’m sure there’s a reason for this misunder--” Joan fell silent as Kurt stretched out his hand to demand what she was trying to hide in the folds of her cloak. His voice left no space for negotiation.

“Hand it over.” 

Joans fingers cramped around the leather strap. It was nothing more than a silent protest, for she knew she had lost the fight. 

“You’re walking a fine line, Excellency,” he said with a menacing growl. “I won’t ask again.”

Her cheeks burned with heat by the time he turned the velvet bag inside out. The sponge-like structure shimmered in the sun, glistening, golden, and obvious for everyone to see. There was no point in lying. Not to a man of the guard. Kurt raised a brow. She didn’t think his eyes could possibly get any colder, but as he stared her down in silence, something froze deep inside of her. He was the only man who could get her to surrender without a sword in his hands.

“I know what I bought.” She nearly swallowed her husky voice. “But … I …”

How could it be that she found speaking to the ambassador of another nation as natural as spelling her name, but was utterly speechless when it came to speaking to a man she had known for ages? The answer was as clear as it was frightening.

With a tormenting calmness, Kurt put the pallida back, rolled the leather straps around it, and secured it on his belt. Something inside him had closed, and she knew there was nothing that could undo this moment.

“Well it seems you’re lucky,” he said. “I just saved you from a very uncomfortable way of ditching training.”

She shook her head in a hopeless attempt to justify herself. Kurt’s voice cut through her chest, leaving her heart bare and desolate. She didn’t want to accept her defeat. She couldn’t. 

“Kurt,” she said. “I never intended to...”

He cut her off harshly. “Don't tire yourself. You'll have the whole way back to make up an excuse. And I suggest you find a good one, for you won't be walking straight after the next few days of training, I guarantee you.”

Joan pressed her lips together in resignation. She had enraged him often enough to know the point where he wouldn't listen. But this time, there was something else. It lingered beneath his voice like a dark veil. Bitterness. And for some reason, that was much harder to take than his fury.

***

“How long have you known?” Joan traced the wooden panel until she found the notch. It was a wicked little thing, nothing more than a small furrow beneath the portrait of Prince Eduart d'Orsay, impossible to find if she hadn't known exactly where it was. In other circumstances, she would have congratulated her cousin for his cleverness. Right now, she swallowed the possibility of what he might have seen or heard, hiding behind nothing but a slim wooden board.

“This passage in particular?” Constantin said after some hesitation. He spoke quietly, as if he hoped Joan would not hear the answer. She probably didn’t _want_ to hear it if she was completely honest. “It had to be one of the first.”

“About eighteen years then?”

“Perhaps.”

“And you've never cared to tell.”

Constantin lay on her bed like a fallen bird. He was propped up to the side, one arm stretched out to smooth her coverlet. _Eighteen years._ A thousand questions burned in her mouth, threatening to strangle her from the inside. She did not speak a one of them. She knew too well what could lurk inside hidden chests, they type of secrets that burned when you dug too deep. There were some chests best to be buried and never unearthed again.

“Leave me alone now,” she said quickly, searching for something to occupy herself before the thoughts could get a hold and stick in some nasty part of her brain. As always, her room was tidy, but, luckily, Anna had not yet cleared up the mess of her desk. It was flooded with scrambled pages, scratches of her letter to the _not-so-imaginary_ Prince and an map of the mines belonging to the Congregation.

Joan grabbed them and turned around, but her cousin hadn't moved an inch. He glanced up to her, guilt dragging down his shoulders.

“I can't stand seeing you this doleful,” he said cautiously.

She didn’t bother hiding the anger in her voice as she put the maps onto the shelf with a loud thud. “Perhaps I ate something wrong for breakfast.”

Joan gathered letters, ink and pen, and stored everything in a chest by the fireplace. She put her teacup back on the tray and arranged the flowerpots to face the window. Only when she had no more excuses to loiter, she turned to face the inevitable and opened her wardrobe. Putting on her training gear would mean accepting her fate.

“You sound awfully resentful,” Constantin said, still careful not to crack the glass that contained her anger. He was dangerously close to cutting himself on a shard. Perhaps he knew, for he suddenly seemed very busy tracing the seam of a pillow, avoiding her eyes at all cost. She swore to God, if he didn’t leave soon, she would smother him with one of them.

“As should you,” she said. 

“Come now,” he said softly. “Didn't we get away with it quite fine?”

 _“We_?” She snapped at him.

To her displeasure he didn’t even flinch. If the conversation with her uncle hadn’t been the perfect practice for diplomacy, Joan didn’t know what was. The image stuck in her head, the way he sat enthroned behind his ornate desk and couldn’t be bothered to look up as he waved Kurt off. And the way Constantin shrank into a picture of misery.

Joan quickly looked back to the drawers; she felt the anger leave her with that thought. And she wasn’t ready to forgive him yet.

“Joan,” he said gently.

“Don’t _Joan_ me. Get out. I mean it.” Joan reached for a plain dark vest and nearly tore the fabric as she pulled it out of the drawer with force. When she looked up again, her cousin hadn’t moved an inch. “Don't test my patience, Constantin.”

His eyes gleamed mischievously. “My fair cousin. You can’t tell me you’re not the slightest bit excited for tonight.”

She let the hatred burn in her stare, but she knew it was no use. He didn’t care. If there was one thing Constantin had practised to perfection, it was enduring a lecture without letting it get to him. 

She blamed her uncle for it, for she knew she had lost Constantin’s attention the moment her uncle had announced the banquet.

She blamed her uncle for it, for she knew she had lost Constantin’s attention the moment her uncle had announced the banquet. The dinner was supposed to be two days from now, but apparently, the Prince de Maillé couldn’t wait to see the new governor. It was more than bad luck that his carriage arrived just when they were headed into the darkest parts of town. 

First the deception with the letter, now this. Slowly but surely, this Prince de Maillé was getting on her nerves. 

“You never look beyond the doorway, Constantin.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“This!” She pointed to the corner of the room, where a monstrosity in the colour of autumn wheat clung to the outside of her dressing screen like dirt sticking to the bottom of a shoe.

She hated dresses. She _hated_ them.

They were nothing but humongous bulks of silk and lace that intruded on the world around her. She hated how she got caught on a seam when she turned too quickly, how she hardly managed to pee on her own, and she especially hated how people stared at her, more than they already did.

This right here was her uncle’s punishment.

"Magnificent, isn’t it?" Constantin ducked as she tossed her gloves at him. He met her murderous eyes with an open smile. He wasn’t afraid of her. He could see through the hull of anger and rage, finding the soft frame underneath. It infuriated her. "Come now, dear cousin. You hide yourself in these awful trousers too often."

"Didn’t you have your share of compliments for a day

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Constantin ducked as she tossed her gloves at him. He met her murderous eyes with an open smile. He wasn’t afraid of her. He could see through the hull of anger and rage, finding the soft frame underneath. It was infurating. “Come now, dear cousin. You hide yourself in these awful trousers too often.”

“Didn’t you have your share of compliments for a day?”

Constantin rose from the bed and his face lit up like a flower in the first raindrop of spring. “Oh, you know what I mean! Nothing could disfigure you, my lucky star! But tonight, we need more than that. I want them to be _jealous_ of you.”

Joan evaded him by stepping behind the dressing screen, the wooden divider covered in delicate carvings of. She had to admire his amount of energy. If she had any goals left for the day, it was a warm bed and a sealed door. “Jealous of what exactly?”

“How can you even ask such a question!” Judging from the squeaking sound, Constantin had settled himself on a chair by the fireplace. There went the last hope for him to leave her room. “Father tries to punish us. We will show him he can’t get to us. Besides, you don’t know how dashing you’ll look in it.”

She let the doublet fall to the ground and snorted derisively. “The sole purpose of these ... these _things_ is to contain women and make them completely dependent on men’s protection.”

Constantin giggled. “After a decade of Kurt’s training I don't think there's anything that could contain you, my cousin. Perhaps you should ask him to spar in a dress more often.”

_Kurt._

_S_ omething sharp stung in her chest that didn’t come from her sore muscles. Joan remembered his face when they left her uncle’s office. She had spoken the truth, or at least as much as she could without dragging Constantin through the mire, but there had been no warmth in his face. Joan shouldn’t be surprised. Deep down she knew it wasn’t that easy with him. It never was. He was stubborn. _Talk is cheap_ , as he liked to say. 

She looked down on her naked body, covered in red and purple bruises like she had been dragged underneath a horse-drawn carriage. Each spot was a reminder of her failure. And a promise of what was to come. One way or another, she needed a new strategy if she were to leave some parts of her skin intact.

“We're lucky if we can walk down the stairs tonight,” she mumbled absently.

“Oh come now. He's been mad before. We'll get through the training somehow. What is of significantly more importance is the question of what wine they will serve tonight. Do you think our guests enjoy red Auvergne?”

She slipped into her trousers and hissed as she grazed a bruise on her hip. “Is that all you care about?”

“What else should there be?"

She couldn’t tell him how she would have taken all the black and blue marks in the world if it meant Kurt would forgive her. “That we've got a friend to lose?”

A snort made her look around the screen. Constantin sat cross legged in the armchair, staring into the fireplace with a derisive smile on his lips. His appearance made her pause. It seemed like the curved arm of the chair, the contrasting pattern of the wooden floor and even the flowery bordure of the walls were made just for this one moment. He blended into the ambiance like only one other person managed to do.

Joan had always hated how Constantin resembled the Prince. Skin like porcelain, a hint of gold in the hair, and bright green eyes that charmed any lady who came close enough. It seemed wrong that they looked so alike considering how their personalities couldn’t differ more. While Constantin was scatterbrained and joyful, gallantly jumping headlong into a scandal, he never intended to harm anyone. The Prince d’Orsay, on the other hand, had quite the reputation for knowing precisely who worked towards his benefit. And who was ballast.

Joan grabbed the rest of her gear and walked up to him. “What?” she asked.

Constantin met her gaze and shrugged. “Sometimes I’m not sure he sees us that way.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

Constantin fiddled with the candle on the dressing table, spilling its wax over his fingers and studied the spots with elusive interest. “Are we friends with Sir de Courcillon?”

“You can hardly compare that.” 

“Why?” He said, scraping off the wax spots from his fingernails. “He’s our master of arms.”

“Because Kurt is …”

 _…different_.

Her stomach turned into a blooming flower. How could she tell him that there was no other person in court that knew her worries before they even took shape? That her heart beat a different rhythm on the training ground, a feeling that would be considered indecent amongst the nobles. For she could be herself in the training yard. She had to be, for his drills didn’t allow for the usual masquerade. He saw straight through it.

Sure, he was their mentor. He had always been older, more mature than them. But they had grown, too. He didn't differentiate between them and the other recruits, and he never made them feel like they were standing on some peak he couldn't reach. That he might not consider them as friends - the thought had never even crossed her mind. She closed the buckles of her gambeson and sat down on the other chair.“You are just angry he took us straight to your father.” 

“Of course I am,” he said, reflexively lifting his head to the empty space above the fireplace where a portrait of the Prince d’Orsay hung in his own room. “A friend wouldn’t speak against you.”

“One bad moment and you forget all the good ones.” She said. Since he didn’t speak, she said: “What is going on, Constantin? You didn’t sound like that before. I saw both of you in the tavern just three weeks ago, inventing a new drinking game. What was it called?”

Constantin leaned forward and stared into his hands, searching for something she couldn’t see. It was unsettling. Even sitting down, he remained flighty as a bird, never truly calm. Now, he only stared. “In those moments it’s easy to forget he’s just a mercenary, isn’t it?” Constantin said, his voice painted in a hazy hue.

The words felt hollow in her chest. She stared into the fireplace, framed in a white marble that reflected the sun. The embers still glowed, but they failed to warm her freezing heart. In her mind, she saw a young soldier being ordered to his commander’s office and receiving an invitation to the Palace of Prince d’Orsay. She saw two children harassing the rest of the court and trying to figure out what to make of this man who was barking orders one moment and sneaking them into the tavern the next.

“Joan?” Constantin looked up, his voice still blue. “You would never leave me, would you?”

"Why do you say that?"

"I don’t know,” he said, his eyes following the delicate pattern of the walls until he reached the panelled ceiling. “I can’t sleep well lately."

“Are you afraid I’ll jump overboard halfway to the isle?”

Constantin didn’t respond to the banter. He seemed hesitant, as if he really shouldn’t speak what was on his mind. ”In this place it's easy to forget who’s on your side.” 

“There’s more people on your side than you think.“ Sunrays caught the seam of his doublet, turning the embroidery into golden yarn against the ebony fabric of his tunic. He looked like a breathing image of Sir de Cortone. He looked majestic. Strands of blond hair fell into his face and she almost stretched out her hand to tuck them away. Every piece of his doublet had been precisely measured and stitched for his body, made to make him look like a regal prince, yet all she could see was a young boy, shoved into the clothes of a man. Joan reached for his hands and felt their familiar warmth. “I’ll never leave you, Constantin. You know that.”

“Is that a promise?”

“That’s a threat.” She pressed his hand firmly. “Now get dressed already. We’ve got a mercenary to please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grumpy Kurt is a lovely Kurt. I dare you to change my mind.
> 
> Thank you so much for your kudos and comments on the last one!   
> And a big thanks to the wonderful AthenaNike for jumping on board halfway and proofreading my scribbles. I'd still be lost in this chapter were it not for your input!


	4. Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter in which I'm an absolute sadist to my characters. But there's also a soft moment of Joan's first year of training somewhere in it.

A strand of hair had come loose from her braid, dangling in front of her face, mocking her. It gathered beads of sweat like a string of pearls, constantly trickling into her eyes and blurring her vision faster than she could blink. But Joan resisted the urge to brush it back. She wouldn’t make it that easy for _him_.

Constantin slumped to the floor with a desolate groan. Even from the corner of her eyes he was a pitiful sight, cheeks flushed with exhaustion and fingers reaching into the void.

“Are we dead yet?” He whispered in her direction. He didn’t have time to finish his breath before a shadow was cast over him. A lurking, menacing darkness that had just waited for him to break the plank first.

Joan couldn’t have helped him even if she had tried. Her side still ached from the blunt hit she had earned for lifting the head earlier. She didn’t even dare to raise a finger at this point. Not even as the sweat poured down her temples in a dozen rivulets, soaking her gambeson like summer rain.

She kept silent as the tip of a wooden staff landed on Constantin’s shoulder with a thud. Kurt’s attention shifted back to her immediately. She couldn’t see anything apart from his brown leather boots, but she knew. There was something distinctive about the way his glance scorched her skin.

She dug her fingernails deeper into her palms as her muscles cramped at the near prospect of relief -- and nearly collapsed when a weight pressed down on her back.

“I can’t hear you count, your Excellency,” Kurt said.

He pressed her down bluntly, demanding all her strength to stay on her forearms and hold herself upright for those last moments. If she touched the ground before seven minutes were up, she had to start all over again. And heavens, if Kurt didn’t try all he could to see another round of her agony.

“Fifty-eight”, she said flatly, afraid to lose the tension and break down if she breathed too deeply. “Fifty-nine. Sixty.”

_Heavens._

Joan dropped to the ground with a moan of relief. It wasn’t even summer, but the sun was already unforgiving, turning the courtyard into a pit of glowing coals and singeing anyone foolish enough to leave the shade of the palace. The cool stones enveloped her with the comfort of a mother’s embrace and she would have laid there for hours were it not for her master of arms.

“I didn’t tell you to stop,” he barked. “Another minute. It’ll teach you to listen.”

A whimper escaped her lips. Kurt had dug out a wooden staff from the deepest recesses of the armoury. On regular days, it might have been used as a practise javelin, but today was far from regular. How did he manage to find the same bruise over and over again?

Kurt squatted down before her, balancing the staff on his hands. “Am I unclear?” 

Joan rolled over with a growling breath and looked him straight in the face. His eyes were the colour of morning frost, meeting her gaze under deep drawn brows. She had thought that this frozen husk would have to start cracking at some point, that there had to be a tear, a fissure, anything that revealed the soft core underneath. A core she missed badly, as she noticed with a certain unease. But three days had passed since Kurt picked the _pallida_ from her hands, and there hadn’t even been the hint of a thaw in his icy gaze.

He watched patiently as Joan wavered with an answer. Her arms were trembling like the branches of an elder tree in the wind, ready to break at the slightest pressure. Her abdominal muscles were beyond that point. But in the end, she bit down her complaints and propped herself up instead. For although a part of her still worked hard to deny the space the grumpy master of arms had taken in her heart, she had just gotten a sense of how cold it would feel without him.

She wasn’t halfway through the minute when Constantin lowered himself again. He pulled his legs forward and sat up with the stature of a stubborn child. “This is outrageous.”

“Get back in position, your Highness,” Kurt said, a warning tone lacing his voice. “And you’ve earned yourself ten push-ups for refusing to obey.”

“I will do no such thing,” Constantin said. “This is no longer a form of training. This is mindless torment.”

“Twenty push-ups,” Kurt said impassively. “And counting.”

“How is it supposed to improve our posture if we’re doing the same exercise for the tenth time?”

Slowly, ever so slowly, their weapons master moved over to Constantin’s side. He squatted down before him in a single, perfectly controlled motion and bowed his head so close to Constantin’s face that even Joan felt pressured. “When I command you to do it,” he said in an icy whisper, “You are not to question it.”

The silence was painful. It was the silence of a dozen unresolved strifes, the frustration of a hundred unspoken words, built up behind a thin layer of restraint. In moments like these Joan was reminded that their relationship was a two-edged sword.

Constantin straightened his back. “I am the son of Prince d’Orsay,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “It seems that I must remind you of that Kurt. And it seems that I must also remind you that you cannot _command_ me to do anything.”

“The creatures of Teer Fradee won’t bow before your title, _your Highness_ ,” Kurt said. His low tone revealed just how much he restrained himself from saying the words he would’ve spit out at a common recruit for daring to object to his captain in such a way.

“The creatures?” Constantin asked. “I thought my father would pay the Guard for my defense on the isle.”

“Should he hold your hand as well?” Kurt asked. “If you keep on giving up like the weakling you choose to remain, he will also have to pay for your funeral.”

“I am no weakling.” Constantin growled.

Joan tilted her head cautiously, just enough to see their faces. Her cousin approached Kurt as closely as he could without crushing each other's nose. They reminded her of a hunting trip last summer, where two wolves met at the very edge of their territory, growling and teeth-flashing, each refusing to be the first to retreat. Her stupid heart leapt at the thought of being that close to her weapons master.

“You are right.” Kurt stood up without sending so much as a dismissive glance towards Constantin. “But to earn that title you would need to be worthy of my attention first.”

Her cousin rose as well, face burning red with anger. “We have endured an hour of this without complaining. You do not even allow us to catch our breaths.”

“You believe the beasts on the isle will kindly wait for you to catch your breath, your Highness?” Kurt said calmly. “Should they brew a cup of tea while you smooth the folds of your doublet?”

Constantin huffed, exasperated. “I will not let you delight in this kind of torture any longer.”

“It is your decision, your Highness. You can continue to hang on to your mother’s skirts or you can get your ass back down and start working on becoming a man.” Kurt shrugged and moved beside Joan. “Either way, your cousin has more balls than you.”

She might have been pleased by his words, had she not known they were empty. Kurt used the “Joan card” almost every time her cousin tried to quit training early. Constantin opened his mouth, his nostrils flaring in rage.

“Shut up, Constantin.” Her voice cut through the air, silencing them both like a gunshot. Constantin stared at her, mouth still open, while Kurt seemed to wager if she earned a hit for that unsolicited interruption. At this point, she wouldn’t have cared about it.

Her cousin behaved needlessly bitchy, and that had not changed since the very first time they had entered the training yard. She recalled how they both had giggled when putting on their training gear beforehand, joking about how thick it was, betting they could roll down a complete flight of stairs without getting a bruise. But as they entered the yard, Constantin froze like he hit a wall. He stood there, rooted to the first step, staring at this strange man that yelled at him for being late. He seemed completely baffled that there was a Coin Guard standing in _his_ courtyard and daring to order the regal prince around like a kitchen boy. Ever since, it seemed her cousin needed to preen his ego from time to time, and she knew he would forget about the training the second he stepped out of his damp clothes.

But Joan herself would go back to her room, tear open the windows and stare into the blue nothingness of a late spring sky, searching for an answer until the chirping of crickets arose from the garden. These last training days had demanded everything from her. She’d gone from running laps and fighting dummies to unarmed combat and shooting targets. But each day, she left training more frustrated than before. No matter what she did, Kurt was never pleased. She felt like she was caught in a spiral. That she was forced to stand still, endure the same moment over and over again, doomed to fail and fail again until she found out how to break out of it.

The sun beat down ruthlessly, smothering half the yard in scalding heat. Even the banners of House d’Orsay melted from the ledges of the gallery above them, the absence of wind depriving them of their purpose entirely. When Kurt chased them on their feet and beckoned them into the shadow of the keep, the heat followed them even there, radiating from their core as the thick fabric of their training gear prevented it from dissipating.

Neither of them was surprised when Kurt pulled two different swords from the weapon rack beside the stairs. Joan contained her frustration behind a mask of indifference as he presented her a wooden sword with the same meaningful gesture as he had over the past three days. She couldn't tell whether it was the heat or the intensity of his piercing grey eyes that burned her cheeks. Joan searched in vain for what he was waiting for. What it took for him to look at her with softness again. But his face was unfathomable, and so she met his gaze fiercely and took the wooden sword as proudly as if it were lethal.

“Ready stance!” Kurt barked. She took a step back and tipped her sword against Constantin’s steel blade. “Fight with honour!”

She mirrored Constantin's steps, drawing breath as calmly as she could, her eyes focused on his face. When he attacked, she met the blade and guided it out of her range with ease. He still managed to shield his vital points, but she would get him there soon enough. It was his eyes that betrayed him.

_Never look where you strike._

It was something Kurt had already broken him of in his childhood days. But occasionally, Constantin slipped back into his old habits. The thought that he was afraid of fighting her with a sharp blade was nearly touching. Like she would let him get close enough to actually hurt her.

Their master of arms stalked around them, silently assessing their actions. She couldn’t deny that she missed the pride in his voice, the little smirk when he knew what she was going for, even the stoic nod for blocking an attack he didn’t think she could hold. His gaze wandered up her body, touching her skin in a thousand little caresses, slowly drawing her attention to the side. It took a good part of her willpower to keep her eyes directed forward.

She had just gotten Constantin to the point where his defense was getting sloppy when Kurt raised his hand. “In case you need some motivation,” He shot her a taunting look, but she knew it was directed at Constantin, “The first to win gets to leave.”

He didn’t have to say what would happen to the one who lost.

Instantly, Constantin’s fingers tensed around the grip and his Adam's apple jumped nervously. She knew what was going on in his mind. If he didn’t get his usual one hour preparation before dinner, he would have to sit between the ladies with a flushed face and messy hair. She hadn’t failed to notice how he fawned on a particular court lady who had accompanied the Prince de Maillé for the banquet. And apparently neither did Kurt.

Joan just managed to dodge to the side before Constantin’s sword hurled forward with newfound strength. He moved as if he’d been splashed with ice water, his strikes no longer the shallow reflections they used to be. She blocked his attack and it cracked nastily when his blade carved a notch in her sword.

She needed a new strategy, and she needed it fast.

Constantin knew she was up to something, but he couldn’t read her mind. Otherwise he would have known why she stalked close enough to provoke another attack, pressuring him to get away from her and diverting his attention from his stance. Just as she hooked her foot behind his ankle, something struck her back.

She spun around and stared at Kurt in disbelief.

“You forgot your surroundings, Excellency,” he said, loosely balancing the staff on his hands. “It’s harder to sneak up on a dead bear.” His voice was indifferent, but his eyes were teasing, a subtle invitation, like the obscure surface of a pond on a windless day, daring her to step forward, to react to his provocation.

Oh how she would have loved to come forward and scold him. To tell him that she had already shifted through the stances like Constantin through his women. That she had tried maneuvers as simple as the Water Strike to those as complex as the Cardinal’s Bluff. That she had given him everything and more, but that she couldn’t please him unless he told her what he was waiting for.

It’s not like she didn’t thunder at him several times already. But his answer had become more frustrating with each one of them. “As long as you don’t know, you’ll keep going, Excellency.”

She offered him a tight-lipped smile when a movement from the corner of her eyes caught her attention. She raised the sword just in time to block Constantin’s strike. She dug her heels against the edge of a stone plate, clenching her jaws in pain as she pressed her sword against his, but it was of no use. His blade sank deep into the wood, engraving a notch above the first one.

“Well done, your Highness,” Kurt said.

Joan yanked her sword from Constantin’s blade and wiped her sweaty hands on her gambeson, but it was just as damp.

This fight was strenuous enough, but Kurt’s behaviour nearly finished her. It would have been easy to say Kurt wanted her to suffer, to feel his disappointment for what he thought was purposeful cheating, the worst thing of all in an honourable training. After all, she had insulted the very core of his philosophy.

But somehow, that wasn’t the reason. Not alone, at least.

There was something…more to this. She just couldn’t grasp it yet. It was like seeing a faded silhouette in the fog. She knew someone was standing there, but she couldn’t recognize him.

Joan dug her fingers into the grip of her sword, pointing the tip at Constantin’s face. The sun charred her neck like a flaming torch, her arms trembled in fatigue. He looked no more glamorous than she felt, hair sticking up in all directions, the blond strands soaked dark with sweat. 

But she was not one to give up, even against these odds.

She inhaled and launched at her cousin, attacking him with random blows from the sides, switching from high to low within a heartbeat, striking his blade hard, granting him no quarter. There was no elegance to her movement, no structure in the attack, nothing but pure instinctive combat.

They exchanged some ten strikes before she saw the man in the gallery.

Joan nearly missed Constantin’s strike, only blocking his sword with a handbreadth over her shoulder. She bashed his sword away, her muscles quivering with adrenaline. It was close. Too close.

She should have left it at that, but the thought had already crept into her mind. She circled her cousin with enough distance to slow down a possible attack, her heart pounding deafeningly loud when she raised her head again. The man was dressed in silk, the golden buckles of his doublet glistening even in the shade. His hair was dark, so it wasn’t her uncle. But the confusion was enough to evoke a memory.

To realize what she was doing wrong all this time.

_There was a particularly bad training session, she remembered it so well because it was the first time they demonstrated their skills in front of the court. She was a young thing and her whole fragile body was shaking with nervousness._

_The Prince formed the heart of the noble class on the upper floor, a dark spot in front of blindingly vibrant reds, greens, and yellows, a raven amidst songbirds. He was too far up for Joan to read his expression or hear his words, but as the recruit defeated her one round after the other, she saw him shaking his head. She didn’t know why, but she had always felt the urge to please him, and with each round she lost, his disappointment felt like another stone was put on to her shoulders, dragging her down._

_An attack threw her off balance, she hit the ground and skinned her hands badly on the edge of a stone. Joan rested on her knees and drew a long breath to control herself, for she learned the court must never see your tears. When she rose again, her uncle had already left the gallery._

_“Come here, little one.”_

_Kurt took her aside, pulling the training blade from her hands and cleaning her wound with water. She had always been afraid of the stern expression on his face, intimidated by his rough orders. She stared at the rosy water running down her fingers, for she couldn’t look up to this man who never laughed. She couldn’t hold his gaze as she waited for him to yell at her._

_But he didn’t yell. He closed the flask and handed her the sword back._

_“You’ve remembered the steps I showed you yesterday,” he said. “That was good. Now try to loosen your wrist up a bit more when you parry.”_

_His hands were holding her weapon like a precious gem. “Why aren’t you angry?”_

_“You fought well.”_

_“I failed.”_

_“There’s no failure, Green Blood. Either you win, or you learn.”_

_And then she looked up at him, trying to decipher any sign of anger he just contained in front of the court watching them. But there was none. All she found was a soft voice and eyes that suddenly didn’t seem as cold anymore. She grew taller by the way he looked at her. It was pride, she knew the look from her uncle, but it was different still. It felt less…possessive._

_Her weapons master closed her little hand around the sword’s grip and pointed to her head. “Your only mistake lies in here,” he said. “You can’t expect your sword to be on the ground when your mind is in the gallery.”_

_She followed his gesture to the upper floors, to the crowd of chattering nobles, leaning over the railing and looking down in anticipation. “But there’s so many eyes.”_

_“You can’t change that. But if you don’t give me away, then I’ll tell you a secret of the Guard. It’s what helped me focus when I was a kid.”_

_“You’ve never been a kid.”_

_Kurt smirked and bowed down to her conspiratorially. “What is the most important part of the training yard?”_

_She frowned. The center surely, the heart of it, where everything connected. Didn’t her professor tell her that everything was about the flow of power? But no! It had to be the door, the entry, for without it, there would be no one to train._

_A thump got her attention back. Kurt tapped the ground with his sword, on the stone border beneath the last step._

_“It’s this line,” he said. She met his gaze, even more confused. “The moment you step over it, you forget who you are.”_

_“But I know who I am.”_

_“Do you? In this place, you are a soldier, little girl. You are learning to kill. That is a great responsibility, and it deserves all your attention.” He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned down one more time. “Promise me you’ll leave the court behind as you step over it,” he said, waiting for her to meet his eyes. “And I might let you in some secrets with which you can defeat anyone.”_

_“Even you?”_

_He smirked again. She liked it when he did that. He looked less stern. People would be less afraid of him. “If you keep it up, then yes. Even me.”_

_“So you’ll forgive me?” She asked, for she still didn’t grasp this soft, this kind side of him._

_“I will always forgive your first mistake, Green Blood. It’s the second one I am angry about.”_

_“Then I promise,” she said. “If you promise you’ll do that more often.”_

_“What?”_

_“Smile. It suits you. Makes you look less angry.”_

_He shook his head broadly grinning and chased her back into the yard._

The line!

Joan could have punched herself in the face for being so blind. How could she just have forgotten about the stupid line? It already helped her focus over ten years ago, and she didn’t even have a routine back then. If she had thought of it earlier, she would have been spared the whole charade. A wave of relief flooded through her when she finally knew how she could return to her former greatness.

It had taken her no more than the split of a second to remind herself of that lesson. It was enough. The force of the impact yanked her back to the present, to the courtyard, to the steelsword in Constantin’s hands. Within a heartbeat, everything froze. Realization darkened his eyes in fear, reflecting the sun like a glowing piece of coal. The sweat was dripping from his chin like sand grains in an hourglass.

“Hold!” Kurt yelled.

Constantin stared at her in disbelief, then, all of a sudden, he started from his rigidity, the sword dropping from his hands and clattering to the ground. “Cousin!” He stepped forward, but Kurt was faster still.

He snatched the sword from her grip and tossed it to the ground. Joan trembled by the expression on his face.. Kurt didn’t meet her eyes, taking her hand instead. Gently. Too gently.

“Hellfire, Green Blood,” he said quietly, sending a shiver down her spine. His eyes grew dark as they flickered to her, and she was lost in them, melting in the heat of his gaze.

Then the pain hit in.

It pierced her like an arrow shot when Kurt pressed a piece of cloth against her arm. She clawed her fingers in his shoulder strap, captivated by the sudden crimson blossoming against the white linen. The gambeson tightened around her chest, crushing her in suffocating heat.

She didn’t know why he spoke so softly, as if she might shatter at the slightest sound. It didn’t matter. She found a way to break free, and yet, she had lost. She stared at his blood-soaked hands and all she could hear was the dull pounding of her heart, drowning her in the hollow certainty that she had broken her promise once too often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hard. I rewrote it no less than three times and it still bothered me, but I decided to move on or I'd still be stuck here. Thanks to AthenaNike for weeks of proofreading the same pages all over again with endless patience! 
> 
> Other than that, I think I should go and burn my gory brainstorm page about sword cutting incidents now before anyone sees it, and I'd love to hear what you think about Kurt's "special training"! Is anyone out there who can hold a plank for seven minutes? [No, not distributed over 7 days, I see you!] I also promise we'll resolve Kurt's darkness ;)
> 
> 05.12.: Minor Paragraph changed in the sword fight thanks to a hint of TalinMirengo! :) I also decided to put the memory in italics, I hope it reads easier now?  
> 12.02.: I crossed some unnecessary phrases in the fight to compress it a bit. [It's still too long, but oh well]


	5. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Settling old debts and a somewhat awkward but tender moment between Joan and Kurt.

A bookshelf with illegible titles. A sputtering candle. Dreadful green wallpaper. 

There was little else to distract Joan from the tugging sensation of thread pulling through her flesh. Smoke billowed over the rim of a copper vat, veiling the room in a dismal haze, but the candlelight was enough to reveal the horrendous truth of the walls. She curled her toes, for it was the only motion she could afford without Professor Hashem accidentally stitching her arm to the pillow beneath. It wasn’t enough.

“Is it much longer?” she asked. 

Joan wasn’t sure what answer she wanted to hear. The pain in her arm was close to chasing her out of the room -- open wound or not -- and the raised edge between two hastily joined tables must have etched a mark into her back by now. Yet, an irrational part of her urged the professor to slow down. 

Her weapons master towered behind him, clinging to her blood-splattered gambeson and refusing to look her in the eye. The dim light cast him in silhouette, a flickering sketch in the dark. Once they were alone, he would step into the light and she would have to face not only him but her own failure, too. 

She wasn’t ready for that. 

“It seems I have failed at teaching you patience, my Lady,” Professor Hashem said, squinting at the curtains, whose singed rim bore witness to an incident that had caused her to leave his studies a year ago. As if to himself, he quietly continued, “As with so much else …”

The candle flame tickled at the edge of his turban, and she was tempted to shove it a bit closer. If he caught fire, he would at least be forced to open the windows. The metallic tang of blood was overwhelming in the tiny space he called his office. 

There was a time she would find comfort in the dark confinements of Professor Hashem’s room, but she failed to do so now. Perhaps it was because he had chosen the most excruciating suture technique of them all, constantly yanking on the thread to maintain the tension, not relieving the pain for even a mere heartbeat. But perhaps it was also due to the numbing ointment he had applied some twenty minutes ago that smelled suspiciously of honey balm and did little to sooth the pain. Joan couldn’t shake the feeling that the old man had seized this opportunity to avenge his scorched curtains. 

Either that, or they should rethink their relationship with the Alliance. 

“Will it leave a scar?” Kurt interrupted her conspiratorial theories. It was the first time he spoke since they had entered the office, and his voice was so hesitant, he sounded like someone else entirely. 

Professor Hashem pierced her skin unperturbed. Kurt had spoken quietly, but the room was tiny, and the professor was no passionate man who forgot his surroundings by being immersed in his work; no, he pretended he didn’t hear Kurt and acted like a pretentious fool to a Coin Guard simply because his title allowed him to.

The anger coiled in her stomach like a snake.

He had not changed a bit.

“I believe the Captain asked you a question,” she hissed.

The professor grunted, turning his repugnance into a deep jab that made her flinch. “A body is not like a potion. And not to the end of Gacane and back will there ever be a formula that could foretell what _this_ specimen specifically would do.”

“He says it won’t.” Joan met the professor’s gaze over the edge of his glasses. “Or my uncle might have some questions. Starting with why he chose the _kermani_ suture when he could have gone for single knots.”

He hesitated, if only for a moment. He must have been certain that he stopped her from learning once he had thrown her out. But enough people surrounded her already, telling her what she could and could not do. Her eyes found two empty slots in his bookshelf. Professor Hashem wouldn’t teach her in alchemy? Fine. She wouldn’t tell him where his tomes about alchemical preparation and natural science went.

At last, the professor laid down his instruments and Joan trailed the thread along her forearm. It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t look as ghastly as she had anticipated considering how the colour had drained from her cousin’s face just a short while ago.

“Are we done?” she asked, her voice crackling with unease as her gaze once again strayed to the figure behind him. 

Kurt’s question had unsettled her, arousing that selfish side of her personality she was too ashamed to acknowledge. She didn’t care about a scar. She nearly told him. But it wasn’t up to her to decide. 

No matter how great the grudge she held against him for believing in her deceit, Kurt was her weapons master, paid to teach combat skills to the royal offspring. And as much as she kept telling herself to be more altruistic than her cousin, she had to admit that her thoughts in the last few days had revolved exclusively about what Kurt's disappointment meant for _her_. Not once had she thought about the consequences Kurt would have to face if his protégés were injured on his watch. The cold and calculating eyes of her uncle loomed in the back of her mind, sending an icy shiver down her spine. Knowing just on how many levels she had screwed up made facing Kurt’s judgement even worse. 

“We are finished, my Lady.” Professor Hashem turned to the basin beside her, washing his fingers in the now dark water. “That is, of course, if you keep still for the next ten days until I can remove them.” He gave her a look as if he expected her to be back in five. He knew her well. Without so much as glancing to Kurt, he strutted to the door. “You may dress yourself again, my Lady. Just…try not to set anything aflame while I tend to the young Lord d’Orsay.”

Joan sat up, but before she could slip out of the room with the professor, the door was closed again, leaving her locked in with a wolf. 

A faint breeze, created by the shutting door, tickled her. It was barely a wisp; it shouldn’t have been so noticeable. A vile suspicion crept into her mind before she glanced down her body. She had been sweating quite heavily before she had to remove her gambeson to have her wound properly treated. Her body was pumped with adrenaline, and then the pain kept her from noticing. Until now. 

Her light chemise was drenched, clinging to her body like rain. The thin fabric of her undergown was a consideration at best. Even in the darkness of the room, she could trace the lines of her muscles. Joan crossed her unscathed arm over her chest and coughed slightly. Marvelous. Kurt might as well have held on to her towel as she was taking a bath in front of him. 

She could ask him to turn around. She had all the right to, and perhaps she even _should_. 

But that was a silly thing to do when he had been with her all this time, with more than enough chances to burn the image of her naked body into his mind. It certainly didn’t help that he was frozen to the spot, even when she rose from the table. 

Joan did the best she could, plucking the gambeson from his hands with a confidence she did not feel, turning her back on him and trying to get into both sleeves at the same time as quickly as possible. 

She got stuck. 

Of course she did.

It was the same reason why she couldn’t slip into a glove in front of her aunt or write in a straight line when Sir de Courcillon stared at her fingers. Except this wasn’t the same at all.

Hopefully Kurt had found something else to watch other than her flailing around like a bird in its first flight, trying to figure out how its wings worked all the while flapping desperately for fear of crashing to the ground. But it was Kurt, after all. Did she really expect him to not keep an eye on her after what she had just pulled in the training yard?

“Wait, Green Blood.” A hand brushed her arm. “You’re going to pull your stitches thrashing around like that.”

His bare touch burned her skin when he freed her from the sleeves, one after the other, his fingertips grazing her neck as he settled the gambeson on her shoulder. Joan bit her lip, afraid she might startle him with the slightest movement when his fingers dipped deeper, untucking her hair from the collar in a gentle stroke. She wanted to lean back and feel his touch once more and escape it all the same. 

“Excellency?”

Kurt had put his hands on her arms, asking to turn her around, but she just stood there, glaring at the wall like a fool. The heat flooded into her ears. A part of her barely remembered to pull the folds of the gambeson in front of her chest before she faced him. 

The scar on his mouth cast a harsh shadow in the quivering light, his stubble dark and rough. She could not -- for all that was dear to her -- glance up at his eyes.

“I understand now why you didn’t send a recruit to escort me,” she said, filling the silence with anything but her shallow breaths. “You would have missed quite the sight.”

Kurt began to close the buckles. A remote part of her reasoned to shove his hands from her, insisting she could very well close them on her own, even if it took her a thousand years. But all she could do was to stare. His hands were rough from their devotion to combat, white lines of scars streaking his fingers like sun rays through a treetop. And yet they moved over the straps with remarkable finesse. 

It took all five buckles until Joan managed to speak. 

“You don’t have to say it.” She swallowed her pride along with her rough voice, forcing the words out one by one. “I know I failed you.”

Kurt reached around her, wrapping the belt around her waist, and his scent enveloped her. He was her weapons master, it shouldn’t be that important. And yet, she recognized the familiar notes of pine and leather intertwined with clove from his polishing oil as if she wanted to remember it for years to come. 

And perhaps she had to. Perhaps this was the only intimacy she was allowed to keep if she didn’t get her mouth to open for an apology.

“…I know I was unfocused. I let myself be distracted, I was bold, I didn’t pay attention to my partner, I was…” 

_Selfish? Foolish? A complete mess?_

Joan clenched her hands and released them again. 

“I forgot to draw the line. ”

Kurt paused, the buckle in one hand, the leather strip in the other, his eyes blazing gold in the flickering light. He knew all that. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. 

_Why?_ his eyes asked.

She clawed her fingers into the cuffs of her gambeson, holding his gaze as it burned into her. She couldn’t allow herself weakness now.

But an answer?

_Because I was focused on impressing you. Because I don’t want to lose you. Because I fear I might have fallen for my master of arms._

There was no answer she could have given _him_.

“You are not a failure,” he said at last, tightening the belt resolutely as if to underscore his words. “And you never were.”

He stepped back, taking the warmth with him and leaving her to shiver in the damp fabric. 

She reached for his wrist, pain flashing across her arm as the suture strained. “And yet it seems I am, since you believe I tried to deceive you.”

Kurt halted, staring at her fingers and the blood-soaked sleeve above. Somehow, the room was even smaller with the professor gone. The ceilings seemed to bow lower, the walls tilting towards her. Yet nothing moved apart from her pulse on his wrist. 

“I don’t,” he said.

She withdrew her hand. “You don’t?”

“You think I can’t tell when you lie, Green Blood?”

“You seemed fairly convinced when you escorted me to the palace.” 

Heartbeats passed by, flickering, pounding, expanding in the silence of the room.

Then Kurt sighed.

He leaned back against the wall, staring at the cabinet opposed to him, crossing his arms in one moment only to open them the next, stemming them against his hips and struggling to find words.

_Kurt. Struggling to find words._

“I have to admit it wasn’t the best side of me,” he said, his gaze finding her arm like a lantern in the dark. “It’s just…” he sighed, or moaned, she wasn’t quite sure. “I don’t like cheating. It makes me go blind like an old hog.”

Joan blinked, unsure what to make of it. Her mind had spun around apologising to him. She hadn’t expected an apology in return. She was so struck she asked the question whose answer she feared the most.

“So, you are not disappointed with me?”

His eyes darted to her face; the tension recoiled in his body. “No. I’m not disappointed, Green Blood. I’m far beyond that.” The sharpness of his words reminded her she was treading on thin ice, overly confident from taking a step towards the shore but forgetting she was still in the middle of a frozen lake. “But not because I think you tricked me.”

“I know.” Her gaze fell to his chest as she touched the dried blood on her sleeve, stiff and crusty. “I suppose I was duly reminded of my lack of focus.”

“Were you?”

_Was she?_

Her fingers plucked at the seam of her sleeve as if the answer was hidden, sewn into a secret compartment that she only needed to find. “I will prove it to you,” she said. “Allow me to train tomorrow.”

It was all she was holding on to now, a little flame of hope, trembling in the cold. Kurt’s answer quenched it like a storm. “You heard the professor. If you’re not careful, that is going to scar.”

“I can train with one arm,” she said; for good measure, she added, “You know I can.”

Joan met his eyes with a lifted chin. If he knew when she lied, he’d find his answer there. It wasn’t enough. He turned towards the door. “I will have to talk to your Highness about this.”

She knew this would come. Her heart dropped anyway. “My uncle left for Chebouile this morning.”

“You should be glad he did,” Kurt said as he opened the door, daylight slicing the room with glistening bright. “He’d have my hide if he’d seen that mess.”

“You are banning me from training for two weeks?” Joan asked. 

But he was gone, darting into the hallway like a wolf into the safety of the woods. 

Panic gripped her. She did not have two weeks to set this right. If this incident came to her uncle’s attention before she could prove to him it was nothing more than a little accident, what would he say?

What would he _do_?

She hastened after Kurt. The maids had opened the courtyard windows to let in fresh air, but the warm breeze only fanned her agitation.

“You know I can fight better than that,” she said, her voice echoing in the vast emptiness of the hallway. “You refuse to give me another chance.”

He scoffed. “You think this is a game. That you can roll the dice until you hit a six.” He glanced at her, his eyes gleaming bitterly. “You won’t get another chance on the battlefield.”

“This is a courtyard, not a battlefield.”

“You leave me no choice,” he said, marching on like he had not just robbed her of the light in the day. Despite his muscular bulk, he was fast. Joan had to shove servants aside to reach him before he could make for the stairs and vanish somewhere in the barracks. She was pleading, and she didn’t care.

“I know Professor Hashem,” she said, words leaving her like dropping dew. “He won’t say a word if I threaten to resume his studies. I’ll wear long sleeves all day; Anna will burn my gambeson. I certainly know how to deal with Constantin. My uncle won’t have to know –"

Kurt turned and she stopped short of colliding with him. “You think _that’s_ what I care about? If I keep a damn position at court?”

“You’re the one who keeps bawling my uncle will have your hide.”

“Hellfire, Green Blood!” His voice was both exasperated and gentle. “We’re leaving in a few weeks and you’re still talking about things like this. You think there’s always going to be a professor stitching you back together? I have to be sure you can focus when it matters, that you can defend yourself, or else...”

His gaze came to rest on an oil painting of Sir de Cortone; a downed stag in the midst of a hunting party, blood oozing from a gaping hole in its chest.

“Or else _what_?” she whispered, afraid of what he had found in the cruelty of the scene. 

Kurt closed his eyes, drawing breath as if she were a stubborn child and he had to keep himself from being too harsh with her. When he opened his eyes again, he placed a hand on her shoulder. His voice grew soft and husky, silencing any thoughts that might have lingered in her mind.

“If something, _anything_ happens to you there -- and be it just a cut -- it wouldn’t be your fault, it would be mine.” He cupped the elbow of her injured arm. “ _This_ was mine. And I won’t forgive myself the next. So don’t tell me I wouldn’t give you another chance, ‘cause I’ve given you a hundred by now.”

He had. And she had been a fool not to see it. 

What she had mistaken for hatred and revenge had been his endless patience. Any other master would have told her how to focus and be done with it. But Kurt knew the significance of discovering one’s own mistakes. He kept pushing her, teasing with gestures and words, just enough to keep her going, for he _knew_ that she could find her way back on her own, granting her one try after another -- and she had wasted every one of them. 

Kurt was still clutching her arm like he was holding a fragile vase that would shatter without his support. Her hand found its way to his, trailing his fingers, barely a touch. A hint. A promise. 

A servant pushed a trolley out from one of the rooms and the clatter of tea service on the tray reminded her of her position. She was the prince’s niece, and she was stroking the hands of her weapons master like a wench in front of the barracks. She pulled her arm out of his grasp, not bearing to look him in the eye as she spoke.

“Very well, Captain,” she said, despising the fact that her voice did not tremble. “Then I can only wish you a more rewarding result with my cousin. If you excuse me, I do believe Sir de Courcillon has been looking for me.”

She turned before his words could drain the determination from her steps; she needed all she could muster as his gaze bored into her back. It was better this way. Better he loathed her for dismissing him like a common soldier than to know just how much she had pined for his touch. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for taking the time to comment and for the kudos on the last one, and of course, for reading!  
> And a big thanks to AthenaNike for proofreading and preventing Joan from the strangest moment in her life. If there is any chance you walked past “Her Excellency” I strongly advise you to read it!;)
> 
> In case it wasn't obvious - this is part of my background for the “Tactical Fighter” skills for Joan. I somehow liked the idea of her being absolutely untalented in Science but not letting that stop her in trying anyway. 
> 
> Nerdy side note: Joan had the pleasure of getting the Reverdin suture (or Ford-interlocking). For the story, I renamed it after Burhan-ud-din Kermani, who was a persian physician in the 15th century - for no reason other than immersion, as this technique was only invented in the late 19th century :’D.
> 
> Short update February 12th: I'm sorry for the delay of the next one, January had me drowning in work and I've also reworked the first two chapters. So we're getting there, but slowly ;) Thanks for reading, see you soon!


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